Letter: GOP agenda threads through Wis. politics

A few developments on the state and national scene caught my eye recently.

To run her campaign for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Justice Pat Roggensack selected the former deputy political director of the Wisconsin Republican Party. The Wisconsin Club for Growth paid more than $110,000 for ads supporting her, and donations from several Republican PACs went into her campaign coffer in this "nonpartisan" race.

The U.S. State Department released a draft environmental report that concludes there's no environmental reason not to build the Keystone XL pipeline, even though producing tar sands oil generates three times as much global warming pollution as producing conventional crude does. It's later revealed the report was commissioned and paid for by TransCanada, owner of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Gov. Scott Walker turned down $4 billion in federal money for Medicaid expansion in Wisconsin, refusing the offer to provide Medicaid to hundreds of thousands of uninsured Wisconsin citizens. He's hoping the federal government will insure some of them under the Affordable Care Act, which he bitterly opposes.

Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson voted against the Violence Against Women Act, which the U.S. Senate approved by a vote of 78 to 22. He's also one of only five senators to vote against legislation opposing human trafficking. He's announced he'll seek re-election in 2016 saying not enough people in Washington are "willing to take those tough votes."

Walker's 2013-2014 proposed budget provides no increase whatsoever in per pupil spending for public school students, but his plan does increase per pupil spending for private voucher school students by between $600 and $1,400, and triples the number of students in private voucher schools, even though some of the lowest performing schools in Milwaukee are voucher schools.